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Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Friends, countrypersons, cake lovers.

Today I come to you on a matter of grave concern. (And no, I don't mean that one.)

You all know of my longstanding stance on that most unholy of creations; the cupcake cake. [patooie!] Well, friends, today I bring a new acronym upon which I must heap disdain and revile-attude of such revulsion that I actually had to make up a word just to describe it.

Really I am speechless. Wow! I cringed a little remembering the one time I purchased a photo cake. For my husbands birthday I had his photo put on the top of the cake. Sadly, it scared my little 3 year old and he refused to eat any of Dad's face. He was a little terrified of the CAKE!

Personally, though I think the tween heartthrob from Twilight looks delicious, I'm not particularly inclined to eat him. I assume his noble blood-sucking character would do the courtesy of the same towards me, and go feed on a cake with a rabbit on it instead.

I don't think I've ever before really considered the emotional damage that the two of you risk on a daily basis. Here we of the internet audience sit, enjoying carefully meted doses of wreckiness and the ameliorating effects of witty commentary and/or sound effects. But you guys have no such luxury-- stuff like this floods your inbox daily, with no witty buffers or warnings of what lies ahead. An e-mail may contain a relatively innocuous sperm balloon or a run-of-the-mill butchering of "Congratulations"...or it may contain something far more sinister, like a really, really, creepy Miley Cyrus shrunken head.

You are to be deeply commended for your bravery. And your therapists deserve commendation too, because I'll bet this stuff prompts some weird discussions. :)

Call me crazy but I've seen EPP's done well and I could really see a cute wedding cake coming out of that! Maybe the engagement picture on the top side and then the bride and groom figurine on the very top. You're have to have a very photogenic couple though.

I thought the Twilight/Photoshop/EPP was great IF it was meant to be funny. If so, being an EPP makes it even funnier. If they weren't trying to be funny, well that's just a whole 'nother session of therapy.

I suppose I'm only reaffirming my status as a preschool mom by saying this, but your DUN DUN DUNNNNs reminded me of this Sesame Street clip from a couple years ago: Law and Order: Special Letters Unit.

It's hard to maintain a sense of proportion with some of these wrecks, especially #1. Really puts things in perspective, doesn't it.

From there, we could segue into perspective of another sort, such as the whole 'giant boobs on a cake for a 9-year-old' thing, except that there appears to be only one and it seems to be located just above the tummy area. That makes it ok. OY!

jen, Jen, JEN (hand in air waving frantically)!!! I need to know something really important, Jen! If we always spit after the mention or sight of a dread CCC (patooie!), what must we do at the sight of an EPP? Snorts, fur ball noises, growls, weird fart-y sounds with the armpit?? Inquiring minds want to know....

meanwhile, I love the Julius Caesar reference! and the scary cakes. Hannah put on some pounds. the sombrero dude looks like he's being chased by a giant alien thing about to eat him (the blue thing would be the mouth. or squirmy tentacle like body)

Edible photo paper on a cookie? seriously, wreckerator? you know they use photo paper too much at that bakery, considering how green that printout is. toner's going, people!

the Twilight cake is just scary. seriously, lady? you're that into young vampires that you photoshopped him with his arm around you? and you're old enough to be his mom?? meanwhile, is he checking out her boobs or what looks like a raw steak in her hand?

I'm going to a family reunion next week and they did ask for pictures. I'm hoping they don't stick them in icing to a faux wedding cake. Scary! (but if they do, I'll send you a picture!)

The key to doing EPP right is to have the image NOT be a person...I cheated and did EPP for my brother's graduation cakes because he wanted the college seal and the mascot (Illinois State University Redbirds anyone??) and I know I can't pipe good enough for that...the EPP was definitely the way to go...

Question for the estimable Jen! Have you ever seen photo prints used outstandingly *well* on cakes?

That last one, the wedding cake, makes me wonder if the concept could have been more effectively carried out if the photos had been made of uniform size and maybe staggered throughout a modernist/cubist cake design. Am I crazy? Do prints ever turn out well?

You know, I blame the people who ordered these cakes as much as the wreckerators. I mean, it's not like they just happened to have a photo of your daughter that they stuck on a mermaid-ish cake. Someone had to think this would be a good idea....and oh how wrong they were.

I want to make the Twilight cake for my hubby. I know it's awful but if I could just see his face when I presented him with that. Actually I won't because I'm making a portal cake for his birthday but it would be awesome.

Along with the babies in blankets, this is possibly the most disturbing wreckeration I've seen. And I'm a sick person, just confessing that up front, but the hat wearing the guy did not look to me like a hat. The shape & color took me to another place south of the border. Aye, chihuahua!

Oh lord, EPP on cookie cakes is a really bad idea. Here in Chicago, earlier this year when the Blackhawks made it to the playoffs, the grocery stores were scrambling to make hockey-related cakes. I saw a cookie cake with the Blackhawks mascot. For those not in the know, it's a picture of a guy's head, and I swear he looked like a Martian. The coloring was so off his skin was green.

The last one probably isn't a wedding cake in my opinion. It's a family reunion cake, with the matriarch at the top and various family members, grandkids, cousins, play cousins... I would love to see the other sides I'm sure it has the other branches of the family.

The wedding cake makes me think of something the brides on My Fair Wedding would show David Tutera. He'd look at it and try not to laugh and then turn it into something fabulous. It's an original idea with terrible execution.

It's hard to contain my laughter with the thought of the picture of my cake is on Cake Wrecks! I am indeed the woman in the picture with RPattz and yes it was meant as a joke and I LOVED that cake when it was brought out to me. It was a surprise for my birthday from my friends last year and I had tears rolling out from laughing when I saw it.

There are printers that print directly onto frosting, also. Alas, 'Edible Cake Printer' sounds rather redundant. And would be, in an ideal world.

I prefer photo + cake to a photo cake. You can look at the photo while eating the cake, the photo doesn't get all carved up, you don't have to wonder what 'edible' ink is made from (and how they verified that it was safe to eat), and so on.

Having followed CW long enough to have some idea of how wreckerators 'think', I have to wonder how many photo cakes have been produced using regular ink.

By the way, that HM cake is from her "Make sure your plastic surgeon isn't a cake decorator on the side" tour. It was a brave comeback -- she had briefly considered a new career as a baseball player...

I never thought something could be worse than a dreaded CCC. I was so wrong I think I will go hide under my bed until it is safe to go into a bakery again lol. Oh man are those scary. Who would eat them??? WHO?? Sad and they make great Halloween cake wrecks!

Just a thought for the sound effect of an EPP cake. Seeing how these cakes kinda made me throw up in my mouth a little, the "sound effect" could be of the upset stomach sort. They are a vomitous mass after all.

If these cakes are ever done well, perhaps you could showcase them in Sunday Sweets.

Oh my. That fish cake was sure to give the kid nightmares (what was the parent thinking when ordering that?). The wedding cake wins points for creative display of coupledom, but the lack of aesthetics and taste --- ugh! The cookie was a perfect example of wreckerators expanding their repetoire of ugliness, and the hat band with the face was weird.

The twilight cake (thanks to the comments for explaining what that was about), though, was clever-- I think that's an example of EPP done right.

And I must confess to having ordered an EPP cake once. It was to launch a workplace charitable giving campaign, featuring the campaign's logo. If it's to help the United Way, that's ok, right? Please say "yes"! ;)

@ Anon 6:50 PMIf I'm not mistaken, the original quote is from Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) and goes: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..." It's the beginning of a funeral oration for the murdered JC (that's Julius, not Jesus).

EPP can work very well if it's not a photo especially. My sister had one with Disney (Minnie Mouse, etc.) characters and it was adorable. However, weird to cut into and tastes funny. but it looked great. as long as it's not crooked, or on a cookie...it's made to blend into icing (background, etc) and a cookie just doesn't work for that!

meanwhile, Jen, have you done a Twilight ZONE post using Twilight cakes?

loved the text today. how do you always manage to keep it new and fresh?

I'm the friend of Cleavage Chick up there ^, the same friend who used the paint program to shop the Twilight photo. It was indeed a joke, one that even non-fans of Twilight thought was funny the night we surprised her with the cake. We still talk about it a year later! I can't believe it ended up here, though!

Oh, EPP are worse than CCC (cup cake cakes)...cause I've actually seen cute cup cake cakes, but I've yet to see a photo cake that wasn't hideous! (OK, but since I've only actually seen them here maybe that's a tad unfair...but I have no evidence any good ones exist.)

A friend of mine knows the guy who invented edible ink. I'm sure he would be pleased with today's CWs. (Though not as happy as the day you posted the CW with the sprinkles on edible paper. That one cake used enough ink to buy him a sports car.)

1. The Edward cake is not printed backwards. The bus says "Tiki Tours".

2. Edible ink is not ink. It's mostly just food coloring put into a food-grade plastic printer cartridge. The manufacture of edible inks is regulated by the FDA. The ink and edible paper have no taste and the paper should dissolve into the cake and become one with the frosting. This means it should be as easy to cut through the photo as the buttercream below it. If it's not done with the correct paper, the EPP is hard to cut through and can be peeled off the frosting. This is not supposed to happen and I'd be wary about eating the cake because I'd wonder what else they did wrong.

While these are horrifying examples of the art, EPP is better than some options. For my 10th birthday I wanted a Star Wars cake. We had a semi-professional baker who was a family friend make it. Imagine my dismay when I run up to my cake, look at the badly printed Star Wars scenes all over it and am told i have to *pick them off* of my cake before I can eat it! Oh the horror of frosting laden paper and the mangled remains of Birthday Cake. I'll eat a hat wearing a guy over that any day.

There are so many ways to do EPP right! Why would anyone choose their own face? Check out Bakerella's Valentines Day cookies for How to Use EPP and not WRECK! http://www.bakerella.com/valentines-day/~Peggy

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